After the Red Sunset
by xXStormflame
Summary: Nine months after the events with Lazarus and the marriage of Lisbon and Jane, an old enemy threathens their happiness and a vengeful vendetta against Lisbon clashes with birth of their child... *Post series* eventual character whump! *possible character death*


**Yo, here I am,** **and you don't know me, but it's nice to meet you. Or that you read this, whatever.**

 **I only really tried once before to write my ideas down, and dropped it again after the prolouge (I'm just to lazy to write) I hope this one will last longer though... As i'm pretty unexperienced in writing, and also not a native english-speaker, I hope you will be be lenient with me and my creation :)**

 **This is supposed to become rather dark (if it lives till then), and contain character whump and possible character death (I know but I wont tell you), cuz i like that. just that you know what may lie ahead of you!**

 **Constructive critism and corrections gramma- and vocabulary-wise are very welcome ^-^**

 **I hope you'll have fun reading this... or so...**

 _ **Of course I don't own The Mentalist. Otherwise I would have made sure the show never stopped.**_

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"Where the hell is Jane? Where's Patrick?!" Lisbon cursed, with a mask of pain on her face.

"He's on his way boss, stuck in the highway traffic, there was an accident earlier. He'll be here any second, just hold on a bit longer." Grace said reassuringly, praying that her former CBI superior didn't notice her lie through her contractions.

"That bastard better hurry, he did this to me after all. And I'm not your boss anymore, Van Pelt" the about-to-be mother growled in-between the labor pains.

Hadn't the whole situation been so dire and overall worrisome, Grace probably would have smiled at Teresa's hormone- and pain-related moodiness. Some people would have been taken aback by how belligerent a heavily pregnant woman could be (she remembered how cowed Wayne had been during her pregnancy sometimes), but having been through the same ordeal herself she knew the FBI-Agent didn't really mean what she said, at least not that part with cursing her husband.

"Take deep and periodical breaths, that's right Teresa, breathe" said the midwife on the other side of the bed calmly.

"Hell, I _am_ breathing, I don't plan on suffocating here" said woman groaned trough her teeth „it just hurts devilishly"

"I know, but you're doing great, at this rate your child will be here within the next hour" the midwife promised. „You know?" Teresa laughed humorless „Ever given birth before?" she gave the woman, who looked about two decades younger than herself, a doubtful glance. „Not myself, yet this isn't my first delivery, ma'am…"

Grace was distracted of the conversation, which mainly served for Lisbon to direct her aggressions towards the midwife anyways, as the burner phone in her pocket rang. She hurriedly freed her hand from Lisbon's vise-like grip, and left the room with big steps, before answering the call.

"Grace, everything alright with you guys?" she heard the muffled voice of her husband over the line. She let out a sigh of relieve. Although it was unlikely, she always felt scared that their way of communicating via burner phones, after their actual phones had been bugged by some tech-guy in Volker's service, would be discovered, and half expected to hear the voice of the invidious man who broke out of prison and tried to hunt down her friend and former boss after she brought him into prison all these years ago, during her time with the California Bureau of Investigation.

"Hey Wayne. Lisbon's went into labor, she's currently trying to lambast the midwife, but that woman's exceptional patient."

"Damned, already?" he cursed "Jane should be there now"

"I know" she sighted "You found any trace of where he could be?"

"I'm at the place he wanted to check from these you and Wiley digged out, and what I found isn't really comforting… I think someone's been here recently, but it's hard to say who and what they did, as they did a good job in cleaning the place up. Anyways, I found blood and a wrecked burner phone…" His words confirmed what Grace had been apprehending since they hadn't been able to reach their friend anymore. It wouldn't have been anything new had the unruly FBI consulant disappeared, in order to pull of some trick of his, but she hadn't been able to shake the feeling that he wouldn't just make himself scare when Lisbon could be giving birth to their child any moment. He might be insensitive sometimes, and unpredictable most of the time, but no one should dare say that this man would let his family down, not with his backstory. And additionally to that, turn his phone off when every second mattered. Turning off his phone was rather uncharacteristic in general.

"Shit"

"Yeah, pretty much" Grace could clearly hear the worry in his voice "Cho and Wiley are on their way here, so we can search the place for any traces that might be left. But that they're not here anymore is not a good sign, it's as if they know what we're doing after all."

"Let's hope they are just overly cautious. I'll instruct the guards here to be even more careful than before though. When Volker has Jane he'll probably try to get out of him where Lisbon is"

"No way in hell he'll talk."

"I know."

They were both silent for a moment upon conceiving what that would mean. Grace shrugged. "We must find him ASAP, Wayne. I'll go back looking through all the evidence we have again, maybe I can find something helpful."

"Do that. Did you tell Lisbon…?"

"No, I told her he was in a traffic jam. That wouldn't be good for her right now." Grace murmured.

"Yeah, I agree. I'll call you as soon as we have any new developments."

"All right. Take care of yourself, Wayne"

"You too, babe"

After ending the call, Grace walked towards the Austin Police Department Officer who stood a little more down the hall.

"Hey, I need you to be very careful from now on. If there's any suspicious activity report immediately. Tell you colleagues too."

She instructed the man with a stern gaze, half expecting him to object to her orders, as she was only working as a consultant for the FBI on the case of the evader Tommy Volker, and didn't really have any authority. He didn't though, and she was thankful for it.

"All right ma'am"

She slowly returned to the room in the small private clinic they chose for hiding Lisbon, as a normal, big hospital would have been too dangerous and confusing to protect her properly, and too easy to be found out in.

Lisbon herself however had of course not been happy about hiding and being protected, when she would much more prefer to be out there hunting Volker down again herself, she'd happily punch the asshole in his pretty face again anytime. But even she in all her stubbornness had to admit that she couldn't risk bringing her unborn baby in danger, and cursed the time he chose for his breakout and vendetta against her.

Back inside, Lisbon apparently still hadn't given up on her plan trying to intimidate the young midwife by using efficient interrogation techniques, freshly from the FBI, and challenging her about everything she said.

She didn't notice Graces return immediately, but as she did, she narrowed her eyes. "Goddamnit, what in the world is keeping Patrick?! There's no way there's such a big traffic jam at this hour. I need him here!"

"Seriously, she needs him." added the midwife, who seemed to finally have enough of being the target of Lisbon's obvious discontent about her husband's absence and general hormone-related moodiness, and must have figured he would be a good replacement for her in that matter.

"As I said before, there was a huge accident earlier, and the traffic has stowed up till now" Grace tried to sound as reassuringly as she could, holding her friends hand.

She tried to imagine how it would have been for her if Wayne had disappeared the night Maddie was born in, and she wouldn't have known if he was alive at all and had been all on her own, without him by her side. Just the thought of it made her feel nauseous, and she promised herself she would be there for her friend as best as she could.

Lisbon on the other hand looked at her again as if she was about to object, seemingly having noticed the hole in Graces not-so-great white lie, as the labor seemed to increase, and she let out a pained cry.

"Ooh, we're really getting started now!" the midwife shouted "Push, Teresa, push!"

Grace sat next to Teresa holding her hand, while having her laptop in her knees and searching for a hint in her data of their evidences.

 _Just a hint, just a tinies hint where he could be, please…_

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 **I know it's not much T.T but I always take so long for writing, this took me hours... (and I only got myself to doing this because I have a huge slack at work. Seriously, I sit there hours of doing nothing. So how fast and if this will be continued depends on how much free time I have at work)  
**

 **i always thought that the whole thing about Volker has much more potential and was kinda cut short, wich kinda dissapointed me, so i kinda brought him back.**

 **(My favorite word of the day: kinda, you'll see...)**

 **I kinda started the story in the middle, though I actually wanted to begin in the beginning, but beginnings are so hard to think of and even harder to write, so I just started writing where I knew best what was happening, where I kinda ended up describing what happened before already, so it would be kinda stupid to write earlier chapters... oh well... I really hope I can manage to write all of this story down, as I really like it...  
**

 **if you have any suggestions for a creative title, gimme! (and always feed the plotbunnies, or so I've heard...)**

 **enough of my bibbely-babbering, I wish you a good night! (it's not night though but maybe it's for you)**


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